“Are you
really going to cook within 10 minutes or should I order pizza?” my hungry husband asks in a
‘dhamki’ (intimidating) tone. Especially when he sees house in a mess, no signs of dinner on table, and it appears like I have been on internet all day. A hungry man is an angry man.
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| Tamatar-Palak ki Sabzi, my go-to 5-minute recipe |
And I am a bored-of-eating-pizza-again
woman. So here’s what I do within the 10 minutes:
- make a roti dough with wheat flour and water (and sometimes flaxseed meal), cover and keep aside. Then,
- the days I have plain dal pressure cooked and stored in separate containers to use over 3 days, I bring that out of the refrigerator. Then,
- the rice, usually cooked extra to last until the following lunch or dinner, is out of the refrigerator and into microwave for 2 minutes. Meanwhile,
- rinse tomato & spinach, chop them quick. Use partly for making tamatar-palak dal (lentils with tomato & spinach) on one burner, and use remaining to make tamatar palak sabzi simultaneously on another burner. Then,
- prove to husband I cooked in 10 minutes, and ask (ahem, demand.) him to come help make roti together.
There. Dinner’s ready.
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| Simple veggie recipe for busy people - Tomato & Spinach Subzi |
Spinach and Tomato Curry (Palak Tamatar ki Sabzi)
Serves 2
What you'll need:
½ Tbsp oil
½ tsp cumin
seeds (jeera)
1 cup
tomato, chopped
¼ tsp turmeric
(haldi) powder
1 tsp red
chili (lal mirch) powder, or to taste
1 tsp
coriander (dhaniya) powder
½ tsp cumin
(jeera) powder
½ tsp dry
mango (amchur) powder
2 cup
spinach, chopped
½ tsp salt,
or to taste
¼ tsp sugar
Let's Begin!
Heat oil on
medium heat in a medium pan, add cumin seeds, let pop. Add tomato.
Cook a minute or two. Add all the
powders. Mix. Add spinach, mix, cook a minute. When tomato starts to get mushy, change color,
and looks cooked, add salt and sugar, mix. Switch off heat and cover. Done. Serve with roti or rice.
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| Quickest and easiest and simplest Spinach-Tomato Sabzi |
This palak tamatar ki sabji is the
quickest subzi I have figured out so far.
No parboiling, no boiling, no soaking, no steaming, no peeling, no extra
work or process required. Using two vegetables – tomato and spinach, and simple ingredients
– haldi for color, chili powder for spice (or chop green chilies if you have
time), dhaniya-jeera powder for taste, amchur for tang, and a hint of sugar to
the taste of salt. You can choose to add a pinch of garam masala too.
Now you can
definitely sauté onion and garlic first then add tomato, or add other vegetables on hand, or add veggies like carrot or corn for color,
or add other stuff like sesame seeds, grated coconut, peanuts, etc, etc, etc to
your liking and experiment. But this
basic sabji cooked within 5 minutes is the simplest even a working person, a bachelor, or a student can make. The sabzi goes well with rice because it’s not
dry (tomato and spinach leave enough water to make it gravy-like
consistency, or add more water if you like).
What do you
cook the quickest when you are pressed for time?
